Page 26 - JOURNAL OF LIBRARY SCIENCE IN CHINA 2015 Vol. 41

Guoxin LI / The construction of modern public cultural service system and the development of public libraries: 025
An analysis about the views on accelerating the construction of modern public cultural service system

public cultural service system.
Two breakthroughs of the socialized development of public cultural services have been
mentioned in the Views: to endow public cultural services with new function and task at first, and
then to innovate the model and method of socialized development of public cultural services.
“New function and task” refers to cultivating and promoting cultural consumption, which is
proposed in the Views for the first time. However, why public cultural services have to shoulder
the responsibilities of cultivating and promoting cultural consumption? The construction of
modern public cultural services should integrate people’s basic cultural needs and diverse
cultural tastes. Therefore, modern public cultural services should promote its fundamental service
capacity and provide people with both standardized and individualized services. In order to satisfy
individualized needs on superior and diverse public cultural services, “consumers” are required
to establish a concept of cultural consumption. Thus, parts of service costs can be reduced, which
will finally formulate a supply model that can be mutually beneficial. It is worth noting that it is a
theoretical breakthrough that public cultural services should satisfy people’s basic cultural needs
and diverse cultural tastes with standardized and individualized services. On top of this, there
comes another question, how to realize the cultivation and promotion of cultural consumption?
Some concrete approaches are exemplified in the Views. For example, to perfect the governmental
subsidy policies for socially-benefited activities, to encourage commercial performances to offer
people with tickets at a lower price, and so forth. In addition, what should the public library do is
to excavate characterized local features, produce creative cultural products, and provide innovated
service programs and contents. Therefore, the main working domain for the public library to
cultivate and promote cultural consumption is to tap distinguished library resources, to form new
documentary and informative products, to offer individualized services, and to fulfill people’s
diverse cultural needs.
“To innovate the model and method” refers to the implementation of the following three aspects
as methods or pilots. Firstly, to establish and perfect the mechanism of government purchasing
public cultural services from social powers. A specific requirement is to issue and publish guiding
principles and purchasing content, and to include purchasing capitals into fiscal year financial
budget. One significant policy, Guiding principles and contents of government purchasing public
cultural service from social powers, jointly formulated by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry
of Finance, will be issued soon, which covers lots of important details related to the administration
and management of public libraries and reading rooms, the low-priced services provided by
privately-run library, the national reading activities, the organization and administration of socially-
benefited cultural activities and training classes, the production and popularity of socially-benefited
digital cultural programs, etc. Secondly, to launch privately-operated pilots of public cultural
facilities. The so-called “privately-operated” refers to attracting economically-benefited enterprises
and socially-profited organizations to run some public cultural service facilities through mandatory

administration or public bidding. Since the 3rdPlenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee